Car­luc­cio cooks on

Cafe founder re­leases his 23rd recipe book

T he founder of the iconic Car­luc­cio’s cafe brand may have sold his in­ter­est in the chain, but An­to­nio Car­luc­cio’s pas­sion for food con­tin­ues. While he takes food se­ri­ously and is clearly chuffed with Veg­eta­bles – his 23rd cook­book – he’s not fond of ag­gres­sive chefs.

“I re­spect very much Ray­mond Blanc for what he does, Gior­gio Lo­catelli, Brian Turner, Pierre Koff­mann, Marco Pierre White, but not Gor­don Ram­say. I don’t like him,” he says.

“Not even his cook­ing, he’s just pre­ten­tious. The very fact that he has to swear, and to bring a regime in the kitchen. They are not mil­i­tary. Come on! You achieve much more in a lovely at­mos­phere.”

With fre­quent mar­riage pro­pos­als from fans, a string of celebrity devo­tees (not least Jamie Oliver) and a real pride in hos­pi­tal­ity, it’s hard to imag­ine Car­luc­cio bawl­ing some­one out for not reach­ing his stan­dards.

“My phi­los­o­phy is to be happy and to make peo­ple happy,” he rea­sons. “And by re­sult, if you make peo­ple happy they make you happy.”